Excuse the melodramatic title for this post. As a friend and reader of this blog, Naveed, wrote me, "Since you haven't updated your blog, you must be busy." Well, yes, that's true, but I suppose it's been a lot of falling into self-pitying kind of behavior again as evidenced by an equally (if not more) melodramatic Facebook status update from a few days ago: "Jenae keeps messing things up."
Hmm.
That, of course, came as a result of the fact that my car battery died because I had left the lights on merely one day after I received my car back from the auto repair shop. Of course I felt like an idiot (mostly because I feared my parents' retribution and I kicked myself for my own simple oversight), though that certainly did not mean I was "messing things up." What that mostly meant was "OK, lesson learned. Check your lights, check your lights, check your lights." If only the rationality of hindsight blessed me more often while actually in the moment of panicking/self-flagellating (not literal self-flagellation, of course. Don't worry; I'm not going to turn into the crazy Agnus Dei albino of "The Da Vinci Code").
Anyway, it's not that I haven't been keeping track of what's been making me happy every day. In fact, I planned to write this entry as a sort of "greatest hits" of the past week, finally recording here what has, in fact, dotted my days with little bits of happiness. Yes, I've been busy, and yes, I've felt down enough this week to think, "What do I have to appreciate today? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BECAUSE MY LIFE SUCKS," but I've also enjoyed moments of peace by myself, moments of genuine joy and appreciation with friends, moments of academic discovery and excitement, and - amazingly - moments of feeling healthy and strong (as in, I took a run! A real run!).
Funnily enough, too, I just had a conversation with a few classmates about the woes of journaling. For an interview class, we were "required" to write in a journal throughout the quarter and prior to class, my classmates began to lament the fact that they - of course - hadn't actually completed the assignment.
"I start a journal for, like, two days and then I just give up," one guy stated. One of the girls in the class agreed.
"I just feel so weird writing for myself, you know? I like writing e-mails because they have a purpose."
I added how I felt like most of my past journal entries were rather self-referential, commenting on the act of journaling and how great it is. Looks like I'm doing the same thing here, I suppose, but I think what stuck out for me from the conversation was the fact that we all felt this similar fear of not writing something that was "interesting." We all complained about how our lives weren't terribly interesting things to write about and that no one but ourselves really even cared about the papers due next week or the club meetings to attend or the roommates/coworkers/classmates to whine about. I agree that those are a lot of uninteresting details that when compiled all into one place that can sound a lot like a big whinefest. I read back on old "Xanga" (a weblog site that, as far as I can tell, has gone completely by the wayside) and cringe a little bit; there's an awful lot of moaning about how "busy" I am with high school homework.
Yet I still keep reading my teen entries and at that time, plenty of other people did. A journal is a time capsule, a way to preserve certain emotions and ideas we may never recover. There's a difference between complaining and spilling out our brains on to paper. We're all interested in each other's lives because we tend to be a little voyeuristic by nature. I've always said that if I could have a super power, I'd want to read minds just to get that little extra piece of insight into someone else. What seems boring to us may very well be boring, but it also very well may provide an insight for others or simply for ourselves that was completely unexpected. That's simply the risk one must take.
So, without further ado, here's the list of things I've appreciated over the past week (that I wrote down or remember) that part of me has just been a little too afraid to post if only because... well... they seemed uninteresting at the time. Let's see what we get out of it now:
On Friday, February 27th, I appreciated the couple at Wildflour Pizza who asked if my friend and I were waiting on a table before they went ahead and took one.
On Saturday, February 28th, I appreciated the worker at Paulette Macarons who provided my friend and I with free samples as we debated what to order without pushing us to make a purchase.
On Sunday, February 29th, I appreiciated one of the football players I tutor, Pat, for posing thoughtful questions about a science fiction novel he read for class and actually wanting to engage in a discussion with me about it.
On Tuesday, March 3rd, I appreciated the giant cardboard cutout sign on the corner of Santa Monica and Westwood Boulevard that allowed passersby to stick their head into a photograph of a man in a kayak. L.A. needs more silly advertisements.
On Wednesday, March 4th, I appreciated rewatching "Amelie," and seeing a film that represents a desire to appreciate simple pleasures and confronts head-on how social anxiety and the fear of rejection affects every one of us.
And right now, I appreciate listening to Pandora bundled up in warm sweat pants, reminiscing upon the week.
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